THE NEW YORKER round brought home how skillful the current touring professionals are. T HE weather changed overnight. On Friday, a perfect Georgia spring day, the temperature was in the high seventies, and a southwest wind -the prevailing wind-sifted softly around the course Nevertheless, Au- gusta National still presented a re- doubtable challenge. The turbulent wind on the opening round had dried out the greens and speeded them up. It took judgment and execution of the first order for a golfer to place an approach shot within fifteen feet of the pin, and he needed to be that accurate to set himself up with a real crack at a birdie. I walked a good many holes with T om Watson and Ben Crenshaw, an attractive pairing. They are two of the most thoughtful and articulate peo- ple in golf, and their vistas include many interests outside the game. Both of them had posted 72s on the opening round, but neither was in top form this day . Watson's swing was a little choppy-there wasn't enough width to either his backswing or his down- swing. Crenshaw's rhythm was fairly smooth, but he was having trouble gauging just where he should try to land his shots on the resilient greens so that they would end up close to the tight pin positions. Watching the sheath of concentration in which each of the two men was enclosed through- out this round emphasized what an arduous, punishing game tournament golf is. Two under par for his round after six holes, Watson bogeyed the seventh when he misjudged the dis- tance to the pin on his pitch shot, and then parred the last eleven holes. Cren- shaw, one of the most gifted putters in the game, made no putts to speak of en route to a 73. Watching the frowning tenacity of Crenshaw and Watson served as a reminder that, in order to succeed in big-time golf, a player must always think in terms of the seventy- two holes that a tournament comprises. Every hole counts, because it is critical for the player to stay relatively close to the front-runners all the way, so that at the start of the fourth round he will be in a position to challenge the leader if he has his best swing going and is lucky enough to have one of those days on the greens when the correct line to the cup is as obvious to him as if it had been painted with a brush. The complexion of the tournament changed suddenly in the middle of the afternoon. Frank Urban (Fuzzy) Zoeller, the 1979 Masters champion, who had had a 76 on the opening day, brought in a 66. He had played an astounding round. He had made only one bogey-he had found the bunker behind the fifth green with his second shot-and he had made seven birdies. He had set six of them up with a succession of terrific iron shots: on the first hole, a 7 -iron to ten feet from the pin; on the long second, a sand wedge to ten feet; on the seventh, a pitching wedge to five feet; on the ninth, a pitch to eight feet; on the short sixteenth, a 6-iron to a foot and a half; and on the seventeenth a pitching wedge to ten feet. He had made all these putts, as goes without saying, and he had also picked up a birdie on the long thir- teenth by reaching the green in two with a 3-iron and two-putting from thirty feet. Zoeller, who likes to clown a bit on the course and look at the merry side of things, astonished every- one, after his round, by attacking the greens at Augusta National as unfair and unsuitable. "One day, someone will wake up and make these greens playable," he said at his press confer- ence. "Putting on tricked-up greens like this is no fun at all." He added, "I would like to have a fair show not only at the Masters but at all the major tournaments." One had to think that this outburst, coming as it did on the heels of his splendid round, had to be prompted by some entirely different circumstance. In any event, since Zoel- ler's 66 was the low round of the second day, his freewheeling outburst on the condition of the greens at Au- gusta National was featured the next morning in the sports sections of many newspapers across the country. Per haps the most significant feature of the second round was Sandy Lyle's emergence from the pack with a sharp 67. Lyle's first round had been a 71, and his total of 138 at the halfway mark gave him a two-stroke lead on the nearest man, Mark Calcavecchla. Having watched the telecast of Lyle's victory the previous week in the Greater Greensboro Open-he had defeated Ken Green on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff by sinking a ten-foot putt for a birdie- I didn't think it was in the cards for him to win two weeks in a row. Most people I talked with felt the same way. Earlier this year, Lyle won the Phoenix Open 69 Å. t4 Jç$: '" . j "\ ...., ., ... . \ /"W ' ..'., t. ;'-Å ( . ... ... ' >>;>'W * . .& þ '< " 'J;:, A . . ....,.... ... ....,. ... . .' W;S ..'.'. .... . : . . .. ................ ..... ... ..... . .' . ...:.. ..:::,.. ørwat4; ..; The.KneippBath. .,.,,:\ . ..""';; .. : .,. ....) .: . , ; : : j , . ; ' '. .. I _.- . I .... , ;::ffi< After a hectic day. After sports. After a night on the town What could be more welcome than a Kneipp herbal bath? Kneipp has used nature's own ingredients to formulate a variety of herbal baths that pamper your every mood. There are specific Kneipp baths to invigorate you. To refresh you To ease tired muscles. And special Kneipp blends to calm and oothe you Available at fine drug and health stores and at cosmetic counters. For informative literature, or to order directly, please write to Kneipp Corporation of America, Dept. TNY. 80 Davids Drive, Hauppauge, NY 11 7 88. The Kneipp Bath Botanies. (i) FATHER SEBASTIAN KNEIF'P (18211897)